The Golf Blog: Tiger Woods suffers setback (75) as Graeme McDowell, Jim Furyk (-1) lead with Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, 17 year old high school student Beau Hossler in contention
The Golf Blog says: Saturday was the tale of two days at the U.S. Open. It was a good day for many of those near the top of the leader board, including leaders Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell (-1), Fredrik Jacobson (+1), and Ernie Els (thanks to an eagle on 17), Lee Westwood, Nicolas Colsaerts, Blake Adams (+2), and Jason Dufner (+3). It was a good day also for 17 year old high school student Beau Hossler who found a way to birdie the next hole every time he bogeyed a hole to shoot even par and remain at +3 for the tourney. After his round, Hossler said his goal has changed from winning low amateur to winning the entire U.S. Open. Wow, that’s chutzpah.
It was a terrible day for Tiger Woods, who shot a whopping 5-over 75 to fall back to +4 for the tourney. The worst bogey was on the last hole when Tiger couldn’t get on the green from less than 120 yards in the fairway. He then stubbed his chip and it squirted helplessly on the green. Tiger missed the putt. Ouch. All day, Tiger’s distance control with his wedge was totally off. Unfortunately, his chipping and putting couldn’t save him. While most of the others on the leader board (except for David Toms) were maintaining or improving their positions, Tiger had one of the worst rounds of the day. At +4, Tiger needs to do some serious charging on Sunday. He’s never come from behind to win a major, though. So things don’t seem to bode well for him. He did just win the Memorial from coming from behind, birdieing 3 of the last 4 holes. That’s something positive to draw from.
As a quirk of the day, everyone who wore purple seemed to move up the leader board, as indicated in our leader board below.
-1
Jim Furyk
Graeme McDowell (purple)
+1
Fredrik Jacobson (purple)
+2
Ernie Els
Lee Westwood (purple)
Nicolas Colsaerts
Blake Adams
+3
Beau Hossler (a) (17 year old)
John Senden
Jason Dufner
Webb Simpson
K. Chappel
J. Peterson (purple)
+4
Tiger Woods
Retief Goosen
Matt Kuchar
Martin Kaymer
